‘Led’-hot guitar: Hawaiian slack key icon keeps heritage thriving

For someone whom the NEA named one of just nine National Heritage Fellows in 2011, and whose family is renowned among Hawaiian music lovers, Ledward Kaapanacould not come across as more modest — or more happy to be playing slack key guitar and ‘ukulele for generations of fans, as he is on his current West Coast tour.

Ledward Kaapana

“I love when I come to the Mainland and travel all over. We don’t have the opportunities to play in so many places back home,” said Kaapana, interviewed by phone yesterday. With gigs in Felton, Nicasio and Sacramento already under his belt, Kaapana plays Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley tomorrow (Jan. 31), Freight & Salvage in Berkeley Friday and Club Fox in Redwood City Saturday, then at Live at the Cue in Concord Feb. 15 and the Dance Palace in Point Reyes Feb. 16, before he heads north for shows in Eugene, Portland and Seattle (see his online calendar for details.)

California and Washington, D.C., where he traveled to receive the NEA award, seemed “far, far away” when he was growing up in remote Kalapana on Hawai ‘i in the 1950s and ’60s, Kaapana recalled. “I never knew too much about the Mainland. We were so isolated: No electricity, no nothing, living off the land, learning how to survive,” he said.

“The music was one of the really important things we had. My mom, my dad, my uncles, my grandpas — we all played music and that’s how I got involved,” noted Kaapana. “There was nothing to distract you. … In the country, you hear the birds, the chickens, the pigs, and the music was soothing. It was a simple life, and it was fun while it lasted.”

But in the late ’60s, he, twin brother Nedward and cousin Dennis Pavao moved to O‘ahu to work in construction with an uncle. An invitation to play in a lounge in Honolulu turned them into the group known as Hui ‘Ohana (meaning “family group,” and like his surname, often appearing without an ‘okina). Part of the “Hawaiian Renaissance” wave, the group recorded 14 best-selling albums of traditional Hawaiian music, some with vocals by one of his most important musical influences, mother Tina Kaapana. His next group, I Kona (named for the classic he sings in the video below) also won acclaim — and a Nā Hōkū Hanohano Award — with six albums to their credit.

“Back in the ’70s in Waikiki, every club was playing Hawaiian music, and when every entertainer would get done early, we would go check out Aunty Genoa Keawe and support one other,” Kaapana recalled fondly. Although the Honolulu scene diminished in the ’80s and ’90s, Kaapana’s subsequent solo recording career and collaborations with Mike Kaawa have netted several Grammy nominations, including two awards for appearances on compilations from George Kahumoku Jr.’s slack key showcases on Maui.

It’s an impressive achievement, especially considering that Kaapana just retired from his full-time day job of many years with a security firm. “Now I’m a fulltime musicians and it’s more better that I got time to do music. I try to do music every day to just practice and learn more stuff,” said Kaapana, who also gives private lessons. “I want to pass it on to the next generation.”

He’s made a good start with some of the children of his four brothers and five sisters. “The nephews and nieces all play now, because me and my wife Sharon raised them, and now they all have their own children, and we still help with raising them,” Kaapana said, with a good-natured laugh.

“I know that the music will live on to the next generation, like when my dad (George) and them used to play, I was to pass it on to the next,” he said. “At one time in Hawai‘i when the reggae music came in there was so much Jawaiian music, and now most of thse young ones that played all the Jawaiian music have gone back to their roots.”

And it helps to have a large fan base beyond the islands, too. While Kaapana said he “never expected” coming from Hawai‘i to have an award like the NEA fellowship (“I feel so honored”), he knows to expect a wide variety of faces in California audiences. “I know there’s a lot of local people from Hawai‘i that live here, but we get more of the haoles that come to the show,” the musician said, using the Hawaiian word for Caucasians (and not pejoratively.) “They really love the show; some of them come to Maui where I do a workshop with George Kahumoku … They just enjoy it so much, the slack key.”

California slack key guitarist Fran Guidry , seen in the video above accompanying Kaapana on “Black Sand” (a tribute to the now lava-covered beach of Kalapana), is opening for Kaapana and joins him at the end. Otherwise Kaapana won’t reveal much about the current set list. “Everytime I come up here, (fans) always come to find out what I got in store for them, and I surprise them,” Kaapana said. “I bring my guitar and I bring my ‘ukulele and play slack key and sing falsetto.”

Expanding a little, he added, “I try to get all the traditional songs, most of the songs like Gabby Pahinui used to do, like “Hi‘ilawe,” from the Big Island. Sometimes I do stuff ike ‘Pipeline’ or ‘Ghost Riders,’ and they’re surprised, ‘Wow, you know that song?’ And you know, I was growing up listening to all that music — we love country music, too.”